Pleas, Plea Bargaining & Sentencing

Adnan Sultan is a senior staff attorney at the Innocence Project. He litigates post-conviction cases nationwide on behalf of individuals seeking access to DNA testing and relief from wrongful convictions. He also instructs law students as part of the Innocence Project clinic.

He was a member of the ABA Criminal Justice Section's Plea Bargain Task Force. In 2023, the Task Force published a report that contained 14 principles for the creation of a fairer, more transparent, and more just criminal justice system. He authored the chapter, A View from the Innocence Bar, in the book: The Cost of Plea Bargains: Reflections and Recommendations from the ABA Plea Bargain Task Force.

Prior to joining the Innocence Project, he worked as a staff attorney at The Bronx Defenders where he represented hundreds of clients charged with misdemeanors and felony crimes from arraignments to trial. Before working at the Bronx Defenders, Adnan was a Prettyman Fellow at Georgetown Law School where he both represented clients charged with misdemeanor and felony crimes in D.C. Superior Court and supervised third year law students in Georgetown's Criminal Justice Clinic.

Karen A. Newirth graduated magna cum laude, with Honors, from Brown University in 1996 and received her law degree from New York University in 2002. For nearly a decade, she represented criminal defendants in all stages of state and federal prosecutions. Interested in creating systemic change, she joined the Innocence Project to plan and execute impact litigation to address eyewitness misidentification, the leading contributing cause of wrongful convictions established through DNA. While at the Innocence Project, Ms. Newirth helped form its strategic litigation unit, whose goal is to use the courts to address the leading contributing causes of wrongful conviction, particularly by incorporating valid scientific research into judicial decision making. During her eight years at the Innocence Project, she was responsible for the organization's law reform litigation in the area of eyewitness misidentification, including training judges and attorneys, case consultation, and filing amicus briefs. She has published articles about various topics relating to eyewitness evidence and its treatment in the judicial system in peer reviewed journals and in popular media.